Ag surveyors check for citrus damage

Published Friday, January 19, 2001

WINTER GARDEN (AP) -- Paul Messenger sliced into the freshly-picked orange that was lying on a cutting board on the trunk of his car. The cut-open orange looked golden and juicy; there was no dryness and no apparent cell breakdown.

Messenger was one of a dozen agricultural surveyors who visited about 240 orange and grapefruit groves around the state Thursday to determine if there is any damage from a freeze the night of Jan. 4.

It was only the third time in about a dozen years that surveyors have gone to citrus groves in search of such damage. Total results won't be known until Monday after they're compiled into a computer database and analyzed.

The last time agricultural surveyors examined citrus trees for freeze damage was in 1997.

The most vulnerable are Florida's Valencia oranges, most of which which don't reach maturity until March. Most early-to-midseason oranges have already been picked or can be sent to processors right now if they're damaged.

Citrus, worth about $1.5 billion, is Florida's biggest cash crop, and the state is the world's largest producer of citrus behind Brazil.

Some grapefruit growers are worried that the freezes may have caused some damage that would lower its quality from fresh fruit-grade to processed grade.

''People are concerned that there's a quarter-inch damage that may cut grapefruit out of the fresh grade,'' said Messenger, a statistician supervisor at the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service.

Messenger started the day in a commercial grove in Winter Garden, a suburb of Orlando, near a golf course development and newly-built subdivisions. The orange grove, along with dozens of others in the state, is used by the statistics service on a regular base to examine maturity levels and fruit sizes of the citrus crop.

The Winter Garden grove likely avoided any problems because it was located on relatively high ground. Freezes tend to settle in low lying areas. There could be problems in lower-lying areas along the Gulf Coast in Collier, DeSoto, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties, said Messenger, who also planned to check groves later in Polk and Hardee counties.

Messenger walked into the grove and spotted what he was looking for: a tree with a ''P'' spraypainted in white on its base. From there, he grabbed two oranges each from the four trees that surrounded the ''P'' tree and dropped them in a white bucket. Each fruit was grabbed from a different part of the tree since the wind affects different areas of a tree.

He checked tree leaves for any browning or curling, but there was none.

Grabbing a 8-inch knife and a cutting board from his car, he proceeded to slice open the oranges on the vehicle's trunk.

Messenger started cutting a quarter-inch into the orange. No damage. He cut another quarter-inch into the fruit. It looked fine. Finally, he cut into the center. If there was a problem, it would have a watery or glazed look.

''There's no damage whatsoever,'' Messenger said. ''All the sections are nice and smooth. There's no drying. There's no cell breakdown.''